I recently interviewed the Business Marketing Manager of ClickInc, a new hosted affiliate management solution for advertisers. Here is the audio AND transcript of the interview, so you can follow along or print for offline reading.

Listen online or download the mp3 for your mp3 player below.

Clickinc Interview (MP3)

Interview Transcript

Announcer: This conference is being recorded.

Peter Koning: OK, Andre. Do we have you there?

Andre Strul: Yes, I am here.

Peter: OK, we are recording. I have with me on the call... Oh, first of all, this is Peter Koning from Affiliate-Software-Review.com. Today we will be talking with Andre from ClickInc. Andre is one of the partners in this new affiliate management solution. We are going to have Andre tell us a little bit more about the company and the product and answer some questions that I have.

Andre, welcome to the call.

Andre: Thank you. Thank you for having me here and doing business with me and taking the time to talk about ClickInc a little bit.

Peter: Sure, sure. It is my pleasure. I know you are a busy guy. We've actually been having some challenges the last few days to try and get together, but it seems like the stars have aligned and, like we said earlier, the Mayan gods of affiliate networking have all been looking down upon us today. We've actually gotten on the same call together. We had some issues with the conference line here, but here we are. So, let's get started.

Andre: Correct.

Peter: Why don't you, of course, just tell me a little bit about yourself and how you've gotten into affiliate marketing? Let's start with that. Tell us just a little bit about Andre.

Andre: OK. Well, in a nutshell, basically, I am 32 years old, a family man, and I have been doing affiliate marketing for over 10 years now. I got into it when a previous business that I opened in my early 20's failed, and that's when I turned my back to regular business practice and went on the online world. Like I said, I have been successfully managing several programs in different types of industries, so this is something that I really enjoy doing.

I speak several languages, five to be exact. It's always a pleasure to work with affiliates from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, and they are always very pleased when somebody actually answers them in their own language.

That's all about me. I've been doing this for awhile. I spend time with my family. I am 32, and I don't know what else I could say. I won't go into a full description.

Peter: What languages can you speak, other than English?

Andre: English, French, Romanian, Hebrew, Spanish; these are the five that I can master written and spoken as well as read.

Peter: Wow. Have you been an affiliate as well, working as an affiliate?

Andre: I have never been on that side of the curtain. I have always been managing affiliates. I have always been recruiting them. I have always been working with affiliates, but I have never been an affiliate myself. I don't know if it's always been a conflict of interest or whatnot, but I've always been on this side of the curtain.

Peter: Sure, sure. I'm sure you understand what it is like to be an affiliate because you are talking to them all the time.

Andre: Correct. I breathe, sleep and eat affiliates. My number one priority as a manager has always been and always will be to keep the affiliates happy because they are my number one and only source of income. It is very clear to me that I have to take care of my people. I would love to be an affiliate and have somebody take care of me at some point or another, but it hasn't gotten to that point yet.

Peter: Well, I can say that I am an affiliate, but I am also a product marketer and manage my own affiliates as well. I have to say that there is no one out there that is going to take care of you as an affiliate, really. Even the affiliates still have to look out for the problems and always keep up to date with the latest techniques and so on.

I think, I know what you are saying when you say "look after". You mean kind of manage and motivate, right?

Andre: Yeah, manage, motivate; you know, you develop a certain personal relationship with some of them. My daughter, seven months old, when she was born had several affiliates actually send gifts which was something that I was totally mesmerized by. I never thought that you could reach that level of chemistry with people that you work with, you've never seen. You only know them by name and numbers.

It proves that people out there - there is always that human factor to the business. If you add to that reliable and a good business, everything has to be there - I'm not going to send you my check as an affiliate just because you are a nice guy, that's for sure.

If you factor in everything and you have everything working for you, if you also have that approach with them that you take care of them - you call them up. You talk to them over the phone. You have that practical approach instead of just the cold weekly newsletter email. I think it definitely helps a lot.

Peter: For sure, for sure. Let's talk a little bit about ClickInc. It was new to me. I have been working at quite a few affiliate networks and management systems over the last couple of years since I started Affiliate-Software-Review.com.

Somewhere I came across ClickInc. I think I found you, and you found me around the same time. I am not too familiar with it, so why don't you tell us about it. Is it an affiliate network, or is it an affiliate management system and then the merchants have to still build their own network? Can you describe it a bit and put it in a certain category.

Andre: Yeah, sure. It's a hosted solution, hosted affiliate management software. Basically, this is a solution merchants will get and use to manage their affiliates or use to [inaudible 06:39] affiliates or use to manage the start-up of an affiliate program, but it is a hosted solution.

ClickInc basically was designed because of the experience that we've had over the past 10 years working with other affiliate softwares out there. We realize at some point that there is definitely a need in the market for something new, something with new features, something different and something that we basically know how to - we know when we see it, right?

By working with these softwares we knew there were things lacking in many of the software, so we took the time to sit down with our programmers and designers and engineers and with everybody on the team. We sat down and started developing ClickInc which basically has some unique features that we are very proud of. This is how this whole thing started.

I am not going to get into all of the details of the software right now because I think we could talk about that later, but in a nutshell ClickInc, not only will offer the merchant a software solution but we also will offer the merchant the possibility of working with us and our team to, for example, manage or recruit affiliates or start even a program.

We want to give a turnkey solution to the merchant that comes looking. If he chooses to only use the software, that's fine. That's not a problem. If he also chooses to use us for our experience or for free services, we also offer those. We are a complete solution. It is not only software. It is not only consulting. It is not only a network because we throughout the years have gathered over 20,000 affiliates so I would say it is a combination of these three elements where a merchant can basically either choose either one of them or all of them together and get his or her program off the ground relatively fast.

Peter: How would a new merchant that is starting up tap into your affiliate network because it's not like a network like CJ or SureSell, right? You mentioned network, but how would they try and recruit some of those affiliates that you know of?

Andre: Alright, so everything is done through us. It's a case-by-case scenario. When I start talking to a merchant and I see his position in the market today, I see that, for example, he's a startup. OK, that's fine. Let's sit down, let's see what you want to do, I'm going to get my affiliate program started. Fine.

Let's see what products he has. Let's see what types of services he's providing. Let's do a market research. Let's see who his competitors are. Let's see what affiliate programs his competitors offer, what types of percentage they're paying. So, we do all that work.

We take it case-by-case. We study every single aspect of his business. It's probably something that we're already familiar with, probably a branch or a niche that we've already worked in. It might be something new. But, everything starts with getting to know our customer, our merchant.

Once we establish who he is, and we give him some advice on how to position himself in the market with his affiliate program, at that point, if he decides to go ahead and work with us, we will start recruiting. First of all, within our network, meaning I would contact affiliates that know that have targeted traffic for this particular product or service. And, obviously, by going out there and just aggressively getting affiliates on board for his program. New affiliates.

So it's really a personal service. It's not like hi, welcome, and here's the door open to 500,000 affiliates, let's see if it's an affiliate program or not.

Peter: Good luck.

Andre: It's a personalized service. It's a targeted service. It's something that you find has much more positive impact, and much more results, than just a free-for-all type of network.

Peter: And how long has ClickInc been up and running?

Andre: It's been two years. Actually, fully up and running with customers, I would say about 14 months. So, it's a project that has been in the works for some time. We've really taken the time to develop it, test it. I mean, it's not a mom and pop project. It's a big project. It's something that we've been investing a lot of time and money into to have this software up and running.

And it's been working fine with huge traffic loads from several customers that we've managed, and it seems to be working great for the past... like I said, over 14 months.

Peter: And are there certain verticals that you tend to work with more closely as far as types of customers?

Andre: Not really. I've been approached by different merchants in different industries. I mean, some of them I didn't even know existed. But, you know, it's pretty much... everybody starts to realize, well, you know, does it well, by being in the affiliate world. I tell that to a lot of people that there is no real marketing effort that once you do it, that it will give you the best return on your investment in the affiliate program.

You might go advertising doing pay-per-click, doing search engine optimization, but nothing will get you the best return on investment as affiliate marketing works. So, people notice it, people see it left, right, and center. They see the competitor gets an affiliate program. So, it's huge business, and everybody wants to get one.

Even you start looking at Asia, for example, you know, Asia has always been used to going through that chain which is from the manufacturer to the exporter. From the exporter to the distributor. From the distributor from the retailer, and from retailer to the affiliate, and from the affiliate to the customer. I mean, right now you have companies in Asia that manufacture, have an affiliate program, and sell directly to the end consumer in North America.

If these guys got into it, everybody should, you know? I think that we're open to absolutely everybody, and we'll help absolutely everybody. Because at the base marketing and the work involved to go and get affiliates and get targeted traffic is a pain. If you are organizing, know how to do that, whatever it is, once you understand the product and the business model, it doesn't really matter.

Peter: I agree, I agree. I think especially during this time, it's now October 2008 we're doing this call, the financial markets out there are just crazy, and I've been reading some really interesting discussions online about advertising and are companies going to be dropping their advertising, and Google is going to suffer. But, there are two arguments.

One is that people are going to cut back their advertising, and other people are saying they're going to actually increase their advertising, especially online advertising, because it's just so cost effective. I'm kind of in that second group.

I think this is a great time, actually, to be in the online advertising industry, and to help companies that are, maybe thinking about stopping some of the old school advertising models, which are putting out... here in my city, I open the local newspaper, and there are huge full-color ads for some Ford car dealership, right? They're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for those ads.

But, if they actually used some online technique, I'm not saying they should set up an affiliate program, but if they set up like a twitter account and maybe a Facebook page and did a bit of pay-per-click, a bit of SEO work on their site, put some coupons there for people looking for pickup trucks or whatever, they could get a much better return. I think affiliate marketing is part of that whole advertising model, and I think we're going to see more companies looking for that as a solution to most cost-effective and better tracking, of the results of their investment.

Andre: Definitely, definitely. Huge corporations, they've always had that model. A lot of companies will follow that. They'll say we'll allocate $20,000/month for advertising to be on the biggest websites and all that, but it's not about that. That's fine, you've got the money, but use it wisely, you know?

Peter: A lot of the websites, some of them aren't even thinking that way. They're putting it in the classifieds or the newspapers.

Andre: Exactly. If you actually look, use your money properly. Give me that $20,000, and I'll get you that targeted traffic. I'll get you everything that you need. I'll get you an affiliate that will give you much better results than just the type of advertising you do now.

Anyways, that's a whole different discussion, but we're on the same page, definitely, I think. A lot of people are definitely going to revise their budgets and think about more creative ways to get leads or sales, and definitely the affiliate program is the most appealing one.

To generate income with no big investment is always attractive, you know?

Peter: Right. Surely you get some prospects coming to you that maybe aren't quite ready yet. What kind of scenarios are those? When would someone not be ready yet for an affiliate program, and what kind of advice would you give them to get ready to have an affiliate program? What kinds of things need to be in place?

Andre: Well, that's true. I did see several examples. One of them, actually, last week, I was approached by a company that was looking to sell some gas pills. You're supposed to put it in your gas tank and get a 25% increase, and your gas would last 25% longer than regular. You know, OK, it's the right time, it's really one of those questionable products, what not, but he was definitely not ready. He had his one page thing with... his design, everything, was totally not ready.

Nevertheless, even though somebody is in that situation, we, with the team that we have, are able to take him step-by-step. We have a tremendous, qualified, and artistically inclined design team that is actually led by a girl who has a different approach to things. We would sit down, we would make him screenshots, present him with our ideas, what we think, from our experience, will help him move content. We'll set him up.

If a person wants to get started and wants to get into affiliate marketing, we are able to help them. I understand what you mean by OK, when they're not ready, but we'll make them ready. We'll make you affiliate marketing ready, and beyond. What is it that you're going to lack to be ready? Probably, a good looking website, probably a reliable shopping cart.

We have a team. We have a team of programmers. We'll write the necessary scripts. We'll get you the correct shopping cart. We'll create a database for you. We're a complete team of people with different backgrounds and specializing in different aspects, and we have everything that you need. So, there is no real personal customer out there that is not going to be ready after we look at exactly what they need.

Peter: I guess we're both assuming here they have a product that's going to convert, right?

Andre: Correct. That's the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to show results. Look, I don't care how good you talk, and how well you're versed, and how well your website is and software is. If you don't show results to the merchant, you will see that business is just going to go away.

Understand that to be in the business, just to have a customer for a month or two months is not a business. I mean, you're going to go down. If you don't show long-term, I mean stable growth, I'm talking about. I'm always very clear and honest with my customers, and I tell them from day one, guys, do not expect results within the first few months. Don't expect results, I mean, don't think that this is just going to poof, magically start getting sales from one day to another. I mean, it's a lot of work. It's going to take time. But, you are going to see results.

I have conference calls with my customers on a weekly basis, giving them reports, telling them this is what we did this week. We've contacted these and these affiliates. These websites are up and running. You're up and running there. So, I keep them up-to-date with everything that's going on. They see that there's movement, they see traffic increases, they see sales, but it's not from one day to another.

So, merchants are aware of that, it's going to take the time that it takes, and we have to make that effort together.

Peter: What's changed in the affiliate marketing world for merchants in the last year or so? What are the unique challenges that are being faced in the industry, and how do you overcome those?

Andre: Well look, honestly, the key challenges, the key challenge, for me, the biggest one that I always look at is competition. It's always going to be, and it's always is competition. It's how you as a merchant are going to differentiate yourself, in front of the affiliate, by being more special. Why would they choose you over somebody else? So you have to be creative. You have to think about ways to approach your affiliate in certain ways, and offer them things that your competitors don't. So, that's what you need.

Studying the competition is very important. Studying the competition for merchants, especially. For us, I would not take, let's say, ten merchants that are exactly doing the same thing, you understand? Because, ultimately we want to bring something new to this merchant, and there will definitely be a conflict of interest.

So, I always look at the competition, and I always tell the merchant to do the same and to try to find points that would make them a little bit different, and will make the affiliates, you know, there's this, and this thing and this thing. Well together, overall, it tips the balance towards you and makes the affiliate basically sign up with you first, or sign up with you, period. But, I think competition has always been the greatest challenge for everybody out there, and it's no exception for nobody.

Peter: Now I'm going to put the spotlight on you and ClickInc, and ask you the same question. We all know there's more than one hosted affiliate management system out there. So, you know your competition probably better than anybody, so you don't have to name your competition, but what makes you either better or maybe not better, but just different, or unique. What unique things, without getting into all the features and details, but would you say that it's the full service solution that you provide is one of the unique things that you differentiate yourself with?

Andre: Several things. First of all, like you said, I've used different affiliate programs throughout the years, and I know what's out there, and this is mainly one of the reasons why we decided to get into this business, because we saw that we could do better, without any doubt.

I think it was something that grew. I noticed the fact that we also offered the services to the merchant, because when you give them the software side and you see their other needs, it's impossible for me not to step in and say hey, look, I think you should put it this way, or you know what, your banners really don't look good. I could do much better than this, or let me help you with this.

I mean, everything has kind of evolved into what it is now. But, there are a couple of things, a couple of features that I would really like to mention because they're just some examples of the experience that we have, and the results of that experience gave us, you see them straight into the program. So, based with the experience we have, we're able to translate that experience and put it into features that the program has now.

For example, from a managers point of view, which has been for many years, like I said, one of my greatest fears was to always lose affiliates overnight. One day you wake up and you realize hey, that guy's not there, or that guy's not working with you anymore, or that website's shut down. Not necessarily the largest ones, but medium sized and small ones, the ones that don't necessarily jump, when you have 5000 affiliates that you manage, like we do for some of the programs, and you have one or two that just drop you, and then another one drops you a couple of days later.

So, we developed a tool to keep an eye on the traffic that each affiliate sends you, and to alert you in case they go below a certain threshold that you set.

Peter: So, you get kind of like an alert, as a merchant?

Andre: You get an alert as an affiliate program manager, or as a merchant, you get an alert. It can be an SMS on your cell phone. It could be an email; it could be just a simple alert in your control panel that says hey, affiliate 1234 has dropped 60% or 30% or 100% in traffic. You might want to check it out. So, this is the type of thing that I wish I had five years ago, six years ago, when I was...

Peter: Right, because otherwise you have to manually go through and look for patterns with your eye, right?

Andre: Right. And not that, and go to each one of the sites, make sure you it is still there. I mean, it was a lot of manual work. I mean, it's still good to do it and you still end up doing it because the alerts only give you a number figure of what that affiliate is doing.

Again, as an affiliate program manager, you always have to be on top of things. You always have to check your affiliate's websites to see what their exposure is like. I mean, so it's not because you have the alerts or you don't, but you just neglect it and leave it to the program. But, it's just an additional tool that helps you.

Now, this is from a managing point of view, right? From the affiliate program manager point of view. From a merchant point of view, another feature that we have - and this is one that, actually, we have a patent pending with the PTO, the patent office - and this is called tooling.

So, basically, this is a tool - and I think we are the first ones to really merge affiliate marketing and SEO together because what this feature allows us to do is to, basically, track affiliates without having the affiliate's signature at the end of the link.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Andre: So you don't view, anymore, question mark, ID=1234. We use a technology that it go through linked that, basically, we register the affiliate's domain name under his ID with our software and the software recognizes every click that comes from that domain name, it's registered. Every action is registered.

But, there's no more need to use any unique affiliate ID code because the domain is registered. So, affiliates will post on their website direct links that will not have any unique codes at the end. And this helps the merchant tremendously in the search engine writing because these are now taking on the consideration by search engines like Google, whereas the question mark and IDs at the end are discarded, as we all know.

This is a tool that comes and marries affiliate marketing and search engine optimization because if you find the targeted affiliate and if you use the tooling properly with right anchor texts, with the right key words, you will, as a merchant, see your rankings just go through the roof.

Peter: Have you had some merchants where you've seen some results?

Andre: Definitely. Definitely. I mean, I could give you... I don't know if I could name examples, but I could, privately, maybe show you results of number one positions... number one positions for some very, very competitive and tough key words.

Peter: I don't think they want their name there, but I'd be interested in seeing that offline. But, that's neat. I mean, I have heard of direct linking, but the only solution... well, there's one solution that has it, but it's not the same offer that you have because this is for a large affiliate network that has it. But, they're an affiliate network, they're not like a hosted management solution. So, there's a bit of a difference there.

Andre: Well, again, you can have this, but if you don't marry it with targeted traffic, the results are not the same. The whole key here is to get the targeted traffic, get the targeted website that has a direct relation to whatever you, as a merchant, are doing and do a direct link from that type of website, just boosts you tremendously into search engines.

Peter: There's another benefit, too, which is that, especially in the sort of Internet marketing world, people are savvy when they see a link, they can tell it's an affiliate link.

Andre: Yep.

Peter: And if they see a link that's a naked link, then they might... I can just imagine that there's going to be a higher percentage of conversions just because, just for that fact. I mean, they'll take the recommendation - if it's a review article or whatever - they'll take the recommendation a little more seriously if it looks like just a straight link.

Andre: Correct. Or they'll take it as direct advertising. I mean, you just eliminate the affiliation aspect out of it. There are other ways to do it. I mean, we all know there are ways to hide the affiliate link and stuff like that. But, the point here is not that. I mean, it's not necessarily what we're trying to achieve.

What we're trying to achieve here is to really show that the merchant who's going to use ClickInc and our services is going to be able to get the best of both worlds, which right now, nobody else does. Nobody else married affiliate marketing and SEO together. Nobody merged them and really used one to boost the other.

I mean, you come to me and you tell me, "Look, I want to get an affiliate program. I want you to manage it." That's fine. But, when I take care of that aspect and I also show you that your ranking is going up on search engines, I mean, you're getting the bonus straight off the bat. And you know how important it is to have good rankings. I mean, I don't have to tell you.

Peter: Yep, yep. For sure. Great. Well, it's been really informative, Andre. And I guess, just to wrap it up, is there anything more you wanted to add as far as ClickInc and where you're going and how people can learn more about your services?

Andre: Well, obviously, you can always go to the website, ClickInc.com. We are offering a one month free, totally no-strings-attached promotion. So, we encourage people to come and test the software and try it out. You need to try it. I mean, it's like anything else. So, we encourage people to come and do some looking around, download the demo.

If you want to take it to the next step, you could contact me directly and we could set you up with an account. You won't be charged absolutely anything. You could start using it parallel to your program. It's not like I'm saying, "Hey, download all your affiliates from one day to another." But, you know, you could run two programs parallel and see how they work.

But, I really think for a lot of people out there, ClickInc, globally, with all the services that we offer, is a true marketing solution - something that will bring results and something that, before you know it, will make a big difference on your bottom line.

Peter: Yeah, and I can see that it's worth trying. And, of course, you have shared objectives, right? I mean, because the more that your clients make, the better for you, too, right?

Andre: Correct. Again, it's a case by case... I mean, we don't have fixed pricing. I will not tell you, "Oh, my consulting fees are starting at $600.00 an hour just for me to take a look at your website." It's a case by case. We see what your business price is. We see what your potential, what your current volume is and we adapt to you. Why? Because as you grow, if we help you grow, we'll grow alongside, you understand?

We are very down-to-earth and we are very direct in the way we do business. It's not like one price for all... it's not like that. Our business is not like that. It's a case by case, one by one, sitting down and figuring out what's best for you and for us and for everybody. So, more than that, I don't know what else to say.

Peter: [laughing] Oh, I think you've said it all.

Andre: I think I'm going to get myself some ClickInc now.

Peter: [laughing] You sold yourself.

Andre: I sold myself, correct.

Peter: That's great. Well, thanks so much, Andre. And I'm sure you'll get some inquiries from this. And I'm going to take care of wrapping this up and get it up on the blog as soon as I can. And I wanted to, before I hit end recording, just to thank you so much for taking the time and telling us about ClickInc.

Andre: Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

--- (Edited on 10/17/2008 8:37 pm [GMT-0500] by Peter) ---